Firespell (The Dark Elite 1)

“I can tell them,” I said. “Scout said they’re meeting at five o’clock.”

Foley smiled, and there seemed to be appreciation in her eyes. “Very good,” she said.

“The only problem is,” I said, “I don’t know exactly where they are. I’ve only been to the, um, meeting room once, and I don’t think I could find it again. And even if I did,” I added, before she could interrupt, “they don’t think I’m one of them.” That might change once they discovered my fledgling power, but I doubt Scout had had time to update them. “So even if I can get there, they may not listen to me.”

“Ms. Parker, while I understand the nature of their work, I, like most Chicagoans, am not privy to the finer details of their existence. I am aware, however, that there are markers—coded markers—that guide the way to the enclave. Just follow the tags. And once you arrive, make them listen.” She turned around and disappeared into the common room. A second later, I heard the door to the hallway open and close again.

It was three forty-five, which gave me time to get to the enclave, except for one big problem.

“Just follow the tags?” I quietly repeated. I had no clue what that was supposed to mean.

But, incomprehensible instructions or not, I apparently had a mission to perform . . . and I needed supplies.

I grabbed Scout’s messenger bag—proof that she was missing—then left the room and shut the door behind me. When I was back in my room, I grabbed the flashlight I’d borrowed from Scout, dumped the books out of her messenger bag and stuffed the flashlight inside. In a moment of Boy Scout-worthy brilliance, I grabbed some yellow chalk from my stash of art supplies and stuffed it, and my cell phone, into her bag, as well.

Hands on my hips, I glanced around my room. I wasn’t entirely sure what else to take with me, and I didn’t really have a lot of friend-rescuing supplies to choose from.

“First aid kit,” said a voice in the doorway.

I glanced back, found Lesley there, already having ditched the uniform for a pleated cotton skirt and tiny T-shirt. In her hands was a pile of supplies.

“First aid kit,” she repeated, moving toward me and laying the pile on my bed. “Water. Granola bars. Flashlight. Swiss Army knife.” She must have seen the quizzical expression on my face, as her own softened. “I said I wanted to help,” she said, then returned her gaze to the bed. “I’m helping.”

The room was quiet for a minute as I took it all in.

“Thank you, Lesley. I appreciate it. Scout appreciates it.”

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled absently, then moved toward the door. “Just make sure you tell her I helped.”

“As soon as I can,” I murmured, just hoping I’d have the opportunity to talk to Scout again. I stuffed the supplies into the bag, and had just closed the skull-and-crossbones flap when visitor number two darkened my doorway.

“So your weirdo friend’s gone AWOL?”

I glanced behind me. M.K. stood in the doorway, arms folded across a snug, white button- up shirt and the key on a silver chain that lay across it. She must have upgraded from ribbon.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I turned around again, picked up Scout’s bag, and slid the strap over one shoulder.

M.K. huffed. “Everyone is talking about it. Her room is trashed, and she’s gone. We all thought she was a flake. Now we have proof. She obviously went postal. She’s probably tearing around downtown Chicago in that gigantic coat, raving about vampires or something. I mean, have you seen her room? It was practically a fire hazard in there. About time someone cleaned it out.”

I had to press my fingernails into my palms to keep the overhead light from bursting into flame.

“I see,” I blandly responded, turning and heading for my bedroom door. “Excuse me,” I said, when she didn’t move. After rolling her eyes, she uncrossed her arms and ankles and stepped aside.

“Freak,” she muttered under her breath.

That was the last straw.

With no fear and no thought of the consequences, I turned on M.K., stepping so close that she pressed herself back into the wall.

“I’m not entirely sure how you finagled your way into St. Sophia’s,” I said, “and I’m not entirely sure that you’ll be able to finagle your way out again. But you might want to think about this—threatening the girls you think are freaks isn’t really a good idea, ’cause we’re the kind of girls who will threaten you right back.”

“You can’t—,” she began, but I held a finger to her lips.

“I wasn’t done,” I informed her. “Before I was interrupted, I was making a point: Don’t mess with the weirdos, unless you want to lie awake at night, wondering if one of those weirdos is going to sneak a black widow into your bed. Understood?”

She made a huffy sound of disbelief, but wouldn’t meet my eyes.

I’d actually scared the bully.

“And M.K.,” I said, stepping away and heading for the hallway door, “sleep well.”

She didn’t look like she would.

19

I took the route to the basement that Scout and I had taken a couple of days before. I wasn’t sure how many paths led to the enclave, but I figured I had the best chance to get there if I stuck to the one I (almost) remembered.

I found the side hallway and the basement door, then took the steep stairs to the lower level. This part was more of a challenge. I hadn’t been smart enough the last time to play Gretel or Girl Scout, to lay down a trail of crumbs or blaze a path back to the railcar line and the Roman numeral three.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t learn from my mistakes. And there were plenty of mistakes, my luck having apparently exhausted itself. Fortunately, I’d left early, giving myself plenty of time to get to the enclave, because it took me half an hour to find the metal door that led to the railcar tunnels, and I had to backtrack two or three times. Each time I found the right route (read: eliminated another dead end from my list of routes to try), I made a little mark on the corridor wall with the yellow chalk from my bag. That way, if I made it through the evening without being beaten down by Adepts, I’d be able to find my way upstairs again.

The possibility that I wouldn’t be coming back—that I was about to dive into something nasty in order to save my new BFF—was a thought I kept pretty well repressed. The risk didn’t matter, I decided, because Scout would have come after me. She’d have come for me.